Newsweek Still Flogging Bogus Pelosi Plane Story
February 13, 2007 -- 10:50 AM EST // // Post a Comment
Can this be real? Check out Newsweek's most recent Conventional Wisdom watch:
Yes, you read it right: The mag did indeed give Nancy Pelosi a thumbs-down for the following:
Sure Hastert had military jet, but seeking bigger one (to go nonstop) makes her sound like a 757 liberal.
Memo to Newsweek's editors: You've given the leading Democrat in the House of Representatives a thumbs down for something that she didn't do. Pelosi didn't request a bigger plane at all. It never happened, people. The story has been thoroughly discredited. How is it possible that hard-working, well-meaning professionals such as yourselves don't know this?
This issue of Newsweek hit the stands not one, not two, not three, but four days after the House Sergeant-at-Arms issued the following statement saying that he, not she, had requested for security reasons a plane that can fly from D.C. to her California district:
In a post 9/11 threat environment, it is reasonable and prudent to provide military aircraft to the Speaker for official travel between Washington and her district. The practice began with Speaker Hastert and I have recommended that it continue with Speaker Pelosi. The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable.
It's hard to imagine how this could be made any clearer. It's even harder to imagine why the existence of this statement in the public domain for days and days wasn't enough to stop one of the leading newsweeklies in the land from publishing outright fiction.
Update: Perhaps the silliest example of this yet can be found here.
To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.